Lobos to don alternate uniforms for conference game against Wyoming
By Will Webber | The New MexicanPosted: 2/8/2012, 10:00 PM Mountain time
ALBUQUERQUE -- The University of New Mexico men's basketball team will be hoping to literally -- and figuratively -- turn back the clock Saturday as it sets sail on the second half of the Mountain West Conference season.
The Lobos (19-4 overall, 5-2 in league play) will play host to Wyoming (18-5, 4-3) in The Pit. Tipoff is scheduled for 1:30 p.m.
It's a rematch of a game UNM won in Laramie, Wyo., to start the conference slate back on Jan. 14. The Lobos followed it with consecutive losses to San Diego State and UNLV, then four straight blowout wins against the league's lower half.
Now they find themselves at the midpoint of the 14-game league schedule and tied with UNLV for second, one game back of San Diego State and one up on Wyoming and Colorado State.
Coaches from around the conference indicated during Monday's weekly teleconference that UNM might be the team to beat down the stretch, that the Lobos are becoming the team so many in the preseason thought would win the MWC title.
To test that theory, UNM is going old school. The Lobos will take the floor Saturday wearing specially designed alternate uniforms that resurrect days gone by. Fans can purchase replica jerseys and T-shirts at the game.
They're not throwbacks, head coach Steve Alford said. Instead they're a combination of uniform characteristics from the '60s, '70s and '80s.
"The retro uniform pretty much got thrown out because had I gone with the short shorts we might not have been able to field a team going into the Wyoming game," he said. "Hopefully the shorts are at least long enough for the guys to appreciate what Old School Saturday is and just remembering the past in a very special way."
Lobo seniors Drew Gordon, A.J. Hardeman and Phillip McDonald modeled the kits to the media prior to Wednesday's practice at the Davalos Center.
"It's the first time I've tried it on, but I like it," Gordon said, adding that if it were up to him he'd have gone out of his way to add even more detail to a white jersey that already features the outline of the state, a silhouette of the Sandias, the school's old Lobo Louie logo and the cherry, silver and turquoise color scheme used by the program during the Disco era.
Alford said the idea of throwbacks had been tossed around virtually since his first day on campus.
Regardless of what his team's wearing, he said the only thing he wants out his players in the final seven games of the regular season is the kind of intensity it showed over its last four games.
The Lobos won all four by at least 16 and their average margin of victory has been 26.3 points.
Alford believes the Lobos are a better team now than when they faced Wyoming the first time.
"Now they see themselves as 5-2, one game out of first," he said. "You control your own destiny because the team that's tied with you and the team that's in front of you are teams you still have to play."
The fact that the Lobos are as healthy as they have been all season has been a factor, too.
Freshman point guard Hugh Greenwood is nearly completely healed from a high ankle sprain, and the nagging injuries that have hampered senior Phillip McDonald in the past are seemingly behind him.
McDonald and juniors Jamal Fenton and Demetrius Walker have been instrumental coming off the bench.
All three are averaging about seven points per game and each brings a different dimension to the UNM offense.
McDonald is dangerous from the outside, Fenton is a verbal leader who is second on the team in assists, and Walker is emerging as one of the best slashing guards in the conference.
McDonald's minutes have risen steadily since December. He said confidence is a big part of his success off the bench.
"Doesn't matter who the starting five is," he said. "Our bench is as good as anybody's. It's about giving good minutes."
Knowing he has plenty of talent at his disposal is a luxury Alford said most teams in the country don't have, but one that's becoming the defining characteristic of this year's team.
"We can go to our bench and we lose nothing," Alford said. "From the first five to a second five, it's a wash."
Notes: Attendance at UNM home games is down an average of 490 fans per game from a year ago. Through 12 games its 14,180.
• A win on Saturday would give the Lobos their fifth straight 20-win season and 18th in the last 26 years.
• UNM is connecting on 39.7 percent of hits 3-point tries, its highest accuracy total since the 2007-08 season (42 percent).
• McDonald needs just four 3-pointers to become the seventh Lobo in history with at least 200 for his career. He is 196-for-516 since joining UNM.
• The Lobos are 6-1 on the road this season and 36-24 in Alford's fifth season. They were 32-83 in true road games in the 11 seasons before Alford's arrival.
Copyright © The Santa Fe New Mexican